By Annabeth Miller,
ShowMe Times Editor

It’s an event that is years in the planning, and it is slated to be one of the most popular events for sportsmen this winter in Dexter.

First Baptist Church in Dexter is hosting its first-ever Wild Game Dinner Friday, Feb. 17. Special guest speaker is the popular Phil Robertson, known by his any fans as simply “The Duck Commander.”

“This has turned out to be a big deal,” Pastor Steve Easterwood said Thursday afternoon. Easterwood said that 425 seats are available for the dinner, with only about 30 tickets still available as of Thursday afternoon. “

Robertson is from Louisana, where he and his family have a successful duck call business.

“He’s been around for a long time,” Easterwood explained. “Some of the guys here in town started ordering duck calls from him in the 1970s. We’ve even got guys from Illinois calling and wanting tickets.”

Word about the Dexter event spread on the Internet thanks to the Duck Commander website.

This is the first-ever Wild Game Dinner for the church, and the meal will be prepared by former Dexter resident and championship barbecue master Darrell Hicks and the Cajun Cooker cooking team.

“Darrell’s doing the cooking,  so it will be a great  dinner,” he said.

Duck Commander

Phil Robertson was born and raised in Vivian, La., a small town near Shreveport. With seven children in his family, money was scarce and very early on, hunting became an important part of his life.

As a high-school athlete, Phil was All-State in football, baseball, and track, which afforded him the opportunity to attend Louisiana Tech University on a football scholarship. There he played first string quarterback ahead of Terry Bradshaw. Phil's been quoted as saying "Terry went for the bucks, and I chased after the ducks." 

Phil and his family- wife Kay, and four boys, Alan, Jase, Willie, and Jeptha - began a quest to turn his passion for hunting and fishing into a livelihood.

Never satisfied with the duck calls that were on the market, Phil began to experiment with making a call that would produce the exact sound of a duck. A duck call for duck killers, not "world champion-style duck callers." Claiming, "No duck would even place in a duck calling contest." And so, in 1972, the first Duck Commander call was born. Phil received a patent for this call and the Duck Commander Company was incorporated in 1973.

His home became his "factory" from where the calls were assembled, packaged, and shipped. Phil traveled store to store in the early days, with most ending in rejections. A certain large store in Stuttgart, Ark., laughed him out of the building (Oh, yeah, that store is now one of Duck Commander's largest accounts.)

In the mid-70's, Phil turned his life over to the Lord and made some dramatic changes in the way he was living. Phil Robertson is not only known as the Duck Commander but is now building a reputation all over the country for his faith and belief in the Almighty. He is invited to speak to hundreds of different churches and organizations every year, telling them what the Lord has done for him and can do for them.

Duck Commander is still a family business with all four sons and their wives working for the company at one time or another. Duck calls are still being built, blown, packaged and shipped in the Robertson's home on the Ouachita River, although now their home is surrounded by several offices and warehouses to help the company smoothly, and the nets are still being run, only now the fish that they catch feed all the Duck Commander employees. Yes it's a rough life, but as Phil says "somebody's gotta do it."

It isn't often a person can live a dream, but Phil Robertson, aka The Duck Commander, has proven it is possible with vision, hard work, helping hands, and an unshakable faith in the Almighty. If you ever wind up at the end of Mouth of Cypress Road, sitting face to face with Phil Robertson, you will see that his enthusiasm and passion for duck hunting and the Lord is no act- it is truly who he is.

Easterwood said the dinner will begin at 6 p.m. at the church, with the program to begin at 7 p.m. In addition, there will be a number of prizes donated for the evening, including a shot gun to be signed by Robertson himself.

What's Happening

• WHAT: Wild Game Dinner
• WHEN: Friday, Feb. 17
• TIME: Dinner @ 6 p.m.; Program @ 7 p.m.
• WHERE: Dexter First Baptist Church
• COST: $25 per ticket
• SPEAKER: The Duck Commander, Phil Robertson
• INFORMATION: 573.624.7436